Word Bearers

by Anthony Reynolds

  He had been angry when the first shouts of warning from the Imperials within the complex had reached his ears, and he stormed into their midst, ripping them apart with concentrated bursts of his combi-bolter, tearing arms from sockets with his power talon.

  It had taken only minutes to gain control of the facility.

  It was strange, though; it appeared that the enemy had known they were coming, and prepared some hasty defences. No, that was not correct. They knew something was coming, but they had not barricaded the door out onto the ice, but rather, the entrance to the stairwell that led down to the access tunnel fifty metres below, as if they expected an attack from there.

  ‘Don’t try to understand them,’ he reminded himself. ‘They are heathen, blinded fools. Their ways are madness.’

  Kol Badar levelled his combi-bolter at the last of the civilian workers. The man was breathing hard, staring up at the towering Terminator-armoured warrior in abject terror.

  A waste of ammunition, the Coryphaus decided, and lifted the barrel of his weapon from the target. A flash of hope reared in the Imperial citizen’s eyes, but that was extinguished quickly as Kol Badar stepped menacingly towards him.

  ‘Please, no,’ wailed the man, shaking his head as the Coryphaus loomed above him.

  Kol Badar grabbed the man around one shoulder, power talons digging deep into flesh. Then he slammed the pistol-grip butt of his combi-bolter into his face, splintering his nose. The man’s skull was caved inwards by the shocking blow, killing him instantly, but the Coryphaus continued to strike, until the man’s face was an unrecognisable mash of blood and flesh.

  He dropped the Imperial worker to the ground, feeling a small amount of satisfaction, though it did little to abate his simmering rage.

  Why had Jarulek left him, allowing the whelp Marduk to assume control of the Host? For months, he had raged at Jarulek’s failing. Long had he hated the First Acolyte, and long had he waited to kill him, just as Marduk had killed Kol Badar’s blood brother so long ago.

  He would have killed Marduk then and there had not Jarulek stayed his hand.

  ‘Not now,’ the Dark Apostle had said, though at that time he had been nothing more than a First Acolyte himself. ‘He will be yours to kill, but not yet. He has a purpose yet to perform.’

  It had been three hundred years into the Great Crusade, and Kol Badar had waited long and impatiently for his time to come, but waited he had, through all the long spanning millennia, until at last his time had come.

  ‘If we both return, then you may kill Marduk, my Coryphaus. Your honour will be fulfilled,’ Jarulek had said, just moments before he had descended into the heart of the xenos pyramid on Tanakreg. The pleasure of finally being given free rein to kill the whelp had been ecstatic. That had been shattered when only Marduk had returned.

  ‘Damn you, Jarulek,’ said Kol Badar to himself.

  ‘You should dispose of him,’ said Burias in a voice low enough for none but Marduk to hear him. ‘The insubordinate old bastard is long past his time. He is a weight hanging around the neck of the Host, and he will drag it down, slowly but surely.’

  ‘You still hunger for power, Burias?’ asked Marduk.

  ‘Of course,’ replied Burias sharply, his eyes flashing. ‘Such is our teaching.’

  ‘That is true, icon bearer,’ said Marduk.

  ‘He does not fear you,’ said Burias.

  ‘What?’ asked Marduk.

  ‘Kol Badar. He feared Jarulek, we all did, but he does not fear you.’

  ‘Perhaps not yet,’ agreed Marduk, ‘but he will come to. I am changing, Burias. I feel the touch of the gods upon me.’

  Burias sniffed, savouring the air. There was an electrical tang in the air that left an acrid taste upon his tongue, a sensation he had long come to embrace and recognise for what it was: Chaos.

  Jarulek had exuded a potent aura so strong that it made those of lesser faith bleed from their ears, and this was the same, though admittedly less potent, force.

  ‘If he does not learn his place,’ said Marduk in a low voice, ‘and soon, then I shall allow you to take him. I would enjoy watching you rend him limb from limb.’

  Burias grinned savagely.

  ‘But that time is not yet,’ reminded Marduk.

  ‘No life signs detected, Coryphaus,’ said one of the members of the 13th, looking at the gleaming red flashes on the blister-screen of his corrupted auspex, ‘though there are cooling heat signatures ahead. Possible weapons discharge.’

  ‘Understood,’ growled the war leader.

  Burias placed one hand upon the cold metal surface of the door and closed his eyes.

  ‘The air within is rich with fear,’ he said.

  ‘Good. That will work in our favour,’ said Kol Badar. ‘Burias, take point. Go.’

  Without ceremony, Burias kicked the door off its hinges, wrenching the reinforced steel out of shape and sending it smashing inwards.

  A steel landing extended beyond, and Burias moved forward warily, his bolt pistol in one hand, the holy icon of the Host in his other. The landing was narrow, and a steel stairway descended from it. Moving swiftly and silently, elegant and perfectly balanced despite his bulk, Burias stepped down the steel stairs that led into a corridor. The hallway extended ten metres ahead, before turning sharply to the right.

  The walls, carved from solid ice, radiated cold, though he barely registered the sub-zero temperature. Moving swiftly forwards, his every daemonically enhanced sense alert, Burias rounded the corner and came up against a mesh-link fence that rose from floor to ceiling, barring the way forward. A chained gate was set into the fence, and a frozen corpse was slumped outside it.

  Curious, Burias moved forwards. It was the body of a man, wearing the same white plas armour as the soldiers they had fought at the Imperial bastion. One hand was clutching at the locked gate. Clearly, the man had been shot down while attempting to flee, but the locked gate had barred his progress. Half a dozen dark splinters were embedded in his armoured back plate, and Burias frowned.

  The icon bearer holstered his bolt pistol and grasped the heavy chain that secured the gate shut. With a sharp jerk, he snapped the heavy chain and dropped it to the ground. He wrenched the gate open and the corpse of the enemy soldier was dragged across the floor as it swung wide; frozen, dead fingers locked around the mesh-links.

  Stepping over the corpse, Burias continued along the corridor. After several twisting turns and intersections, it opened out into an access tunnel at least fifty metres wide. Down the centre of the tunnel was a sunken carriageway, and two wide platforms ran alongside it.

  Moving warily into the tunnel, Burias stepped over wreckage and debris, amongst which were sprawled a number of corpses. Their bodies had been slashed by blades and ripped apart by unfamiliar projectile weapons. Several burnt out vehicles were scattered throughout the tunnel, like the discarded toys of a giant. Several were upturned and leaning against the walls, while others had fallen into the sunken carriageway.

  Climbing atop one of the ruined armoured vehicles, Burias squinted into the distance in each direction. There was no living soul in sight, though the gently curving tunnel ensured that the icon bearer could see no more than half a kilometre ahead.

  He dropped onto the bonnet of the white-armoured APC, which buckled inwards beneath his weight, and stepped lightly to the floor.

  ‘All clear,’ he said into his vox-relay. ‘Looks like someone got here before us.’

  As the remainder of the Host moved on his position, he dropped to his haunches to inspect one of the corpses.

  It was another of the white-armoured soldiers, whose face was purple and had swollen like a balloon. Burias plucked a long, barbed splinter from the corpse’s neck, and studied it with interest. It was half the length of a finger, and so thin that if he turned it sideways it was all but invisible. He lifted it carefully to his lips, and his tongue flashed out to sample the serrated tip.

  The taste was acrid, and he registered u
nknown toxic agents upon the splinter. He tasted blood as the barbed shard sliced his tongue.

  Xenos toxins entered his bloodstream, and his limbs began to shudder. A slight sweat broke out on his brow, and he lifted a shaking hand in front of his eyes, attempting to keep it steady, but failing.

  He felt the unknown serum coursing its way towards his twin hearts, but remained unconcerned. Indeed, as soon as the venom had entered his bloodstream, his bio-engineered defences had activated, and were even now isolating and breaking down the xenos poison. His heart rate increased as his body combated the threat, pumping his blood swiftly through his oolitic kidney implant, cleansing it of the deadly serum.

  After less than a minute, Burias’s heart rate had returned to normal and the shaking sickness had left him.

  ‘Intriguing,’ he said to himself.

  The coteries had been moving through the tunnel system for about an hour. They had encountered no sign of life, though there was evidence of furious firefights. The tunnels were as silent as tombs, and cold light blazed down upon them from the rows of strip-lights overhead. Abruptly the lights flickered abruptly and died.

  ‘Five unknowns, moving on our position,’ barked Namar-sin, breaking the silence. ‘Coming fast. Very fast.’

  Marduk and the Stetavoc Space Marines of Namar-sin’s coterie were instantly moving for cover. A faint whine could be heard, approaching rapidly.

  ‘Ware the north,’ Marduk bellowed, just as five blurred shapes roared out of the darkness of the side tunnel, moving with impossible speed. They scythed through the air, skimming two metres above the ground and banked sharply into the access tunnel. They were as sleek and deadly as knives, and shot forward as their engines were gunned.

  Khalaxis and his coterie were caught in the open, and before they could even raise their weapons to fire, three of their number were cut down beneath a hail of barbed projectiles.

  Another was dropped as the jetbikes streaked through the coterie, a curved blade slicing off one of the warrior brother’s arms, severing it at the elbow.

  Then the jetbikes were past, hurtling by the Word Bearers and jinking around the scattered debris.

  Bolters coughed, lighting up the darkness, but they were too slow and the enemy too fast. One of the Anointed unleashed the fury of his reaper autocannon, and hundreds of high calibre rounds chased the jet-bikes as they banked around in a wide circle, passing behind the wreckage of the derailed carriages of the rail conveyance. The autocannon tore through the carriages of the train and ripped out great chunks from the rockcrete walls, but even the enhanced targeting sensors built into the Anointed’s Terminator armour could not match the speed of the enemy.

  Empty shell casings fell like rain from the mighty weapon, but the jetbikes roared on through the darkness unscathed. A missile, launched by one of Namar-sin’s Havoc Space Marines, streaked through the darkness towards one of the jetbikes as it rounded the debris. With preternatural reflexes, the jetbike’s rider spun his vehicle around in a spiralling corkscrew roll, and the missile passed beneath it harmlessly, impacting in a fiery explosion against the wall.

  Marduk fired his bolt pistol on semi-auto at the enemy silhouetted against the flames of the explosion, but even though he had compensated for their speed, still he was too slow.

  Two more of Khalaxis’s coterie were cut down as they scrambled for cover, and then the jetbikes were gone, disappearing up the tunnel that they had emerged from only seconds before.

  Kol Badar was roaring orders, and the remains of Khalaxis’s 17th coterie dragged their fallen brethren into cover.

  The one-armed Namar-sin and his heavy weapon toting Havoc warriors rose from their position and ran forwards, half-dropping into cover behind a wrecked Imperial vehicle while others took up position behind rockcrete pillars. They readied their heavy weapons, hefting them to shoulders or bracing them in their arms, their stances wide as they sought targets.

  ‘More hostiles inbound,’ shouted Sabtec.

  ‘Where?’ snapped Kol Badar.

  ‘Behind us,’ replied Namar-sin, and Marduk swore.

  ‘Sabtec, protect the rear. Enfilading fire,’ ordered Kol Badar. The warriors of the 13th moved instantly into position, moving with practiced efficiency. All the warrior brothers were in cover, with one line facing north, one west.

  ‘Khalaxis, report,’ ordered Marduk.

  ‘One dead, one as good as,’ growled the towering champion of the 17th.

  The Anointed split, two moving to join the 13th in the rear, the other two standing with Kol Badar at the entrance to the north tunnel.

  ‘Burias,’ hissed Marduk, as he dropped in alongside Sabtec, watching the rear. He couldn’t see anything moving in the distance, but, respectful of the speed of the enemy, he judged that that did not mean much.

  ‘Yes, my lord?’ came the silken response on the vox-net.

  ‘Guard Darioq-Grendh’al.’

  Burias was slow to respond, and Marduk read the resistance to his orders in the silence.

  ‘Protect him, icon bearer,’ snapped Marduk. ‘He dies, and you die.’

  Burias crouched atop the wreckage of one of the train’s carriages, sniffing the air. He sensed something nearby, but could not locate its whereabouts.

  Movement out of the corner of his eye attracted his attention, and he snapped his head towards it, emitting a low growl. Even with his daemon-enhanced witch-sight, he could see nothing.

  ‘Burias,’ said Marduk, and the icon bearer hissed in frustration.

  ‘Fine,’ he replied, giving the area where he had sensed movement a final glare.

  As he dropped down from the carriage to the cracked plascrete platform below, a whip-thin figure crawled forward across the top of the carriage behind him, its form vague as if it dragged the surrounding darkness around it like a shroud.

  The icon bearer flicked a glance over his shoulder, and the shape melted into the shadows. In an instant, it was once more invisible, and Burias turned away, jogging towards Magos Darioq.

  The stink of Chaos was strong around the magos, who was standing immobile behind the twisted wreckage of what may once have been an Imperial vehicle, oblivious to the preparations going on around him.

  ‘Move there,’ snapped Burias, giving the magos a shove. Darioq-Grendh’al walked mechanically forward, each slow step accompanied by the hiss and wheeze of servos.

  ‘Here they come again,’ said Kol Badar in his warning growl.

  ‘Kill them, in Lorgar’s name!’ roared Marduk.

  ‘Contact from the east,’ said Sabtec, his voice calm and measured.

  Marduk glanced around the twisted metal he was taking cover behind, and saw a number of lithe figures darting from cover to cover, heading towards them up the tunnel. Even with his advanced vision and the supplementary enhancements provided by his helmet, they were difficult to focus on, for they moved so quickly.

  The First Acolyte narrowed his eyes, as he focused on one of the xenos humanoids. For a moment, it was clearly visible as it crouched, the long fingers of one hand splayed out on the floor.

  Its slim body was encased in a form-fitting suit of reflective black armour that moulded to its movements: a far cry from the heavy, inflexible plate worn by the Word Bearers. Barbed ridges rose along its forearms and shoulders, and its head was completely encased within a sleek, backwards sweeping helmet. It carried a long, slim weapon of alien design, and elegantly curving blades protruded from the barrel and hand-grip.

  Then the alien was moving once again, its movements sharp and precise as it darted into cover. Its speed was almost unnatural; one moment it was perfectly still, utterly balanced and focused, the next it was gone. There was a grace and fluidity to its movements that no human, however enhanced, could ever hope to match.

  ‘Eldar,’ spat Marduk.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Solon sat alone in the mess room. His tray vibrated slightly on the metal table from the reverberations of the crawler’s engines, and the mugs hanging
against the wall rattled. He still wore his bulky exposure suit, though he had slipped free of its upper half, which hung down behind him. He pushed away his half-eaten meal of bland synth-paste gruel as the door to the mess room was pushed open.

  The foreman primaris tapped one of the nicotine sticks from his packet, and lit it with a deft flick of his butane lighter. He nodded to Cholos through the haze of blue-grey smoke as he sat down opposite.

  The boy that they had found in the abandoned crawler unit moved forward from behind the door, his wide eyes wandering around the room.

  ‘You gonna eat that?’ asked Cholos, gesturing to the half-eaten meal.

  Solon pushed the tray towards the orderly in response, blowing out another cloud of smoke.

  Cholos coughed once and cleared his throat.

  ‘Come on, kid. Get some food into you,’ said Cholos, patting his hand on the seat of the vacant chair encouragingly. The boy moved forward warily, and his eyes locked on the food.

  Solon stared at the boy, still seeing his son’s dead face. The boy wore an exposure suit that was much too large for him, its hood drawn back away from his head. The sleeves hung well past his hands, and the cuffs of its legs were bunched up around his ankles. As he shuffled forward, trying not to trip, he would have made a comical sight were he not so clearly malnourished.

  He’d spoken not a word since they had brought him aboard, except to say his name when questioned: Dios. The boy’s words when they had found him still haunted Solon.

  ‘They were taken,’ the boy had said. There were some corpses aboard the crawler, but the vast majority of the people that had been onboard had apparently disappeared into thin air.

  ‘By who?’ Solon had asked.

  ‘Ghosts,’ the boy had replied, and the words had made Solon’s skin crawl.

  ‘There is no such thing as ghosts,’ the Interdiction sergeant, Folches, had said, though there had been little conviction in his voice, and Solon wondered whether he had been trying to convince the boy, or himself.